Author(s)

Joseph Ndayisenga, Ildephonse Sindayigaya

Ecole doctorale, Université du Burundi, Bujumbura, Burundi.

Burundi is a party to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It thus has to implement the provisions of these instruments on the rights of the children including their rights to participation. The object of this article is to analyze the way through which this is applied in the field of education, especially in phases of selecting students’ representatives, the organization of students general assemblies, where democratically students may have the opportunity to express their opinion and even when they offended the school rules before getting punished. Other zones were researched also analyzing whether pupils or students participate in setting up or revising school rules, academic regulations, revising course outlines, setting up or modifying legal and regulatory texts governing education. For the sake of data collection, we used a semi-structured interview conducted with pupils from 4^th degree in fundamental school and secondary school on one hand and from different degrees in University degrees (Bachelor, Master and PhD). Data analysis was used with Microsoft Office Excel. Results show that the reality is that a child is a passive beneficiary of the education system that does not intervene thoroughly in the decision-making even though doing it would be a best way of integrating children in the idea of the student-centered education approach.

Pupils and Students Participation, Education System, Students’ General Assembly, Students Representative, Bujumbura Schools, Burundi

Ndayisenga, J. and Sindayigaya, I. (2024) The Implementation of the Child’s Right to Participation in the Context of a Student-Centered Education System in the Pedagogy of Integration and Decision Making. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 12, 317-327. doi: 10.4236/jss.2024.121021.